... ferocious and beautiful, dreadful and divine, a balance between fear and admiration - the image of the divinity and hope of man and also the creation of man as an artist. The fire of the tiger's eyes in the dark night forest shows a contrast between light and dark. This image of fire may be a religious symbol of purgatory or purification. The forest represents a mythological, natural landscape of beasts and spirituality and is symbolic ... of the natural cycle of organic growth and decay in the natural world. The reference to the stars or heavens may symbolise the rigid "laws" imposed o...

• Word Count: 1115
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... than opposing each other.  When Henri Rousseau first unveiled his masterpiece "The Dream"" in 1910, it was immediately recognized as beautiful but was also widely misunderstood. The painting is appropriately titled. As Rousseau once explained, "The woman on the sofa dreams that she has been transferred to this forest and she listens to the sound of the snake charmer. " Many critics simply could not understand why, if ... the woman is transported to the jungle via a dream, would the sofa on which she reclines appear with her. After all, when a person dreams at night, they do not typical...

• Word Count: 1428
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... light across the dark landscape of the earth. The metaphorics associated with the stars in Van Gogh's painting can be juxtaposed with the evening stars and the night as its backdrop in Duffy's poem. Empathy is defined by Oxford as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Thus the reader can therefore draw parallels between the definition of empathy and the intertextuality that Duffy is perceived to have employed in the ... poem. The concept of a dream is also well-ensconced in Van Gogh's artwork, which could imply that the poem, like the artwork, is nothing but a d...

• Word Count: 1990
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate